On December 12, HBO aired the final episode of the third season of Jesse Armstrong’s award-winning show, Succession. Succession follows the Roy siblings, Kendall, Siobhan, and Roman, as they vie for the top position at Waystar Royco, their dying father’s multi-billion dollar media company. Logan Roy, patriarch of the Roy family and their namesake company, refuses to relinquish control to his children because of their incompetence, facetiousness, and general degeneracy. The siblings’ public and private attempts to seize control of the company coupled with bad decisions, courtesy of Logan’s deteriorated mental state, lead to financial crisis for the company.
Season three revolves largely around Kendall’s attempted coup of the company. His intention was to expose the decades-long cover-ups of murder and sexual assault while simultaneously expelling Logan and placing himself at the company’s helm. Kendall hoped that this change would usher in an era of honesty and youth for the company, whose refusal to embrace technology and quasi-facist ties to the federal government led to near financial and social ruin. Siobhan and Roman initially align themselves with Logan until a series of decisions prove him to be mentally unstable, including an active attempt to sell Waystar Royco without their knowledge.
Kendall’s plan for control eventually falls apart and he is met with the reality of his situation: isolation from his family and the company. He spirals into a depression that culminates in a suicide attempt. The three siblings reunite at their mother’s wedding, where Kendall opens up about the source of his depression and Siobhan and Roman reveal that the company is crumbling from the inside out. A long-awaited allyship and promise for equality in the company is formed between the three siblings, and they decide to pool their ownership in the company to override Logan’s decision to sell.
The episode ends with their plan being thwarted by Siobhan’s husband Tom, who, after learning of the plan, relays it to Logan and effectively secures the position of successor for himself. The plan, which relied on the inclusion of the mother’s shares to secure a majority, fails when Logan contacts her first and buys her out. The season ends with the Roy siblings betrayed and abandoned by Tom, Logan, and the remainder of the family and the company.
The events in this finale were in stark contrast to all the previous betrayals in the show, as Tom, typically acquiescent to the wishes of Siobhan, prioritizes his own interests, and Logan abandons the idea of a familial heir. Throughout the show, Logan has set his children against each other in hopes that one would prove themselves worthy to be the next CEO. The shift away from this original plan indicates the urgency of a problem that Logan has refused to acknowledge thus far: his failing health. Logan’s choice to align with the blindly loyal Tom illustrates his inability to accept his situation. It is another opportunity for him to buy more time as he becomes more sick and continues to run the company into the ground.
Logan’s stubborn nature is evident throughout Succession, and is one of the central reasons for the company’s decline. However, there always remained some sense of paternal duty, though warped, to the Roy children, as Logan proudly touted the “family business” label at every opportunity. Logan’s decidedly final severance from his family in exchange for his desired outcome for the company seems to usher in a new era. Through this avaricious display, he effectively rejects his remaining humanity as he ruthlessly barrs his remaining family from his life. This is perhaps the final eclipse of Logan Roy, and represents his irredeemable state as both father and head of company. But maybe this was his intention all along–to drag the company down with him, since he has failed to find signs of a comparable leader in any of his children. As the Roy siblings spend the show proving themselves to be more selfish than the next, we have failed to recognize the most selfish of the bunch, the one who would rather see the destruction of his own empire than to see his children overshadow him: Logan.
